


Call Down the Mountain

by Anonymous



Category: Captive Prince - C. S. Pacat, Iskryne Series - Elizabeth Bear & Sarah Monette
Genre: A Companion to Wolves AU, A sad cinnamon roll, Alternate Universe, Big wolves, Damen is still a cinnamon roll, Elves, Iskryne AU, Laurent is still an ass, M/M, Some gore and violence, Trolls, future sex, like... big BIG wolves, past Damen/Auguste, somewhat Norse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-29
Updated: 2020-05-29
Packaged: 2021-03-03 01:08:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,240
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24436408
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Four years after the fall of Auguste Janusbrother, a wanderer appeared in the woods. A man, pale as snow, almost as white as the giant bitchwolf who stalked by his side and was said to kill all those who laid eyes on him. No one knew whether he was the ghost of a man, a remnant of old magic, or a story made to scare children.  But with the emergence of more monsters and the threat of trolls encroaching, Damianos Morylsbrother is tasked with tracking the him down. The man he finds is surly and crude and seems to hate Damen merely for existing. And yet he just may hold the keys to Damen's past, and to the wolfmaegth's future.***A Captive Prince and Iskryne series fusion
Relationships: Damen/Laurent (Captive Prince)
Kudos: 6
Collections: Anonymous





	Call Down the Mountain

**Author's Note:**

> Posting a story that has been staring me in the face for a few years now. A fusion of Captive Prince characters in an Iskryne universe. I will be adding vocabulary at the end of each chapter for those of you who haven't ready the Iskryne books and go ??? as you read.
> 
> Also, I will likely change the summary when I have more available brain cells.  
> Comments and kudos much appreciated :D enjoy!

_Seventeenth Summer – Damen_

The end of summer in the northern parts of Averlas were altogether colder than some of the winters in the south. A group of men hiked along, bundled in furs and thick layers despite the sun in the sky. It was snowing, fat flakes that stuck to eyelashes and fur alike.

“Hush, little sister,” murmured one of the boys to the spotted wolf by his side. “It will grow colder still.” It was clear from her playful bounding and her long, growing legs, that she had not yet reached maturity. And yet, had she been facing her brother, her nose would have pressed firmly into the top of his belly. The boy, as custom, has been tithed at his sixteenth summer, and though he had now reached his eighteenth, and was therefore older than Damen, he still had much growing to do himself.

Damen watched for a moment as she whined and yipped like pup before prancing to her sire and clambering on him, tugging on his ear. He turned to the giant animal keeping pace at his own side and wondered what it would have been like to see Moryl as a puppy. The black wolf turned baleful amber eyes on him and Damen couldn’t help laughing at the deeply affronted expression his brother wore. “Oh yes, you could never act so foolishly young,” he teased, and Moryl huffed and headbutted his side, like a mountain using a tree for support. Damen staggered, but didn’t ask his brother to move; it really was cold and if he were not so conscious of his youth he would have pressed his cheek into the musky dark fur.

As they ascended, Damen reached to tug the collar of his cloak higher. Damen was proud of his heritage; while many men of the North grew their pale hair long and braided it alongside their beards, in the South where the summer heat blistered skin, most wore their hair in short dark curls. Damen was no exception; even when he was tithed and traveled from the very bottom of Averlas where the old palace of Akielos sat in ruin, he and his childhood friend, now tithemate, Nikandros took turns hacking away the hair at the bottom of their necks and ears. Even now, with the cold of the breeze blowing across his skin, Damen would be using a short blade to trim if his hands were not cold enough to shake. But it did leave the wind bitterly biting into his ears and neck above his cloak.

Nikandros had been told to stay at the fort with many of the other titheboys, and Damen’s hand brushed at one of the grown curls at his ears. An image of a green eyed, brown-masked wolf appeared in his mind, along with the smell of rich, damp loam, so gently that it took Damen several moments to figure out his wolf had placed it there. It was Athyx and his scent-name, the calm, large dogwolf that had bonded Nikandros. Damen wondered with some surprise at how accurately Moryl could feel his craving for his friend that he could immediately conjure up his brother. He also noticed, with some amusement, that his giant wolf did not seem to hold the same disdain for Athyx as he did for Athyx’s littermates and the other young wolves of the threat.

_Going soft in your old age_ , Damen thought, and felt sharp teeth nipping at his fingers through wool mittens.

Unlike his tithebrothers, Damen had not bonded one of the summer pups born to Straton’s bitch. With seven eager boys and four yipping pups, the competition had been fierce for bonding. The honor of being brother to a trellwolf was what Damen had dreamed of from before he could walk, and he knew his heart would break if he was to be sent home in failure. One of the pups, the biggest and calmest, quickly took to Nikandros. Their rational demeanors suited each other, and Damen felt such pride for his friend to be chosen so quickly and clearly. The only bitch of the litter took a shine to the quietest boy of the group, the dog runt to the most obnoxious, and the last pup seemed to take pleasure in teasing the remaining boys. Damen thought that the pup was his chance—and then it had wondered too far from camp and been swept away in the river while Damen and the other titheboys chased after.

Damen had been determined to stay; he was not yet old enough to prohibit bonding, though close, and he thought that he would remain in the threat until the wolfjarl Makedon forced him out.

And then came Moryl. He was a fully-grown wolf when Damen met him, a giant dominant male with scarring along his muzzle and flanks and a piece of his mouth that hung sideways after being raked by razor thin claws. His scent-name washed over Damen like the first breath of spring; the smell of the initial great cracks of ice appearing on the river, and the musky, black water that hisses up from beneath. Underneath that, the great black wolf smelled of despair.

_He’s a fighter alright_ , one of the older boys told him when asked about the scars and the missing brother. He must’ve only been a year or so older than Damen, and yet he was bonded and so Damen could not help thinking of him as a man despite his clean face that barely needed shaving. _Favored to be the leader of the next threat. But his brother was—_ the boy paused, squeezing his sister to his side while she turned wide, luminescent eyes on him— _killed in the contention for the konigenwolf, and Moryl’s—well, he’s never been the same, poor creature._

The wolf looked at Damen now and whined low in his throat. Damen pushed at him _sorry_ and _calm, brother._ Moryl didn’t like to be reminded of his past, and even Damen mourned for the way his brother used to be, sides too skinny from eating last, mind diseased with thoughts of his last brother’s death. It took weeks for Moryl to stop snubbing Damen when the boy sat at his side, and several more for the wolf to willingly seek Damen out of all the other unbonded men and boys in the camp.

And then Damen had been clobbered in the head by a troll’s club and Moryl had savaged the beast and then lain with him for two days until he could finally sit up without vomiting. Suddenly, Damen had a brother and was no longer just an unworldly boy to the men around him, but the brother of a wolf who was strong enough to stand in the contention of a konigenwolf. A brother strong enough to stand in contention, and almost win. Almost everyone, especially Makedon, still called him pup though. Damen figured they would until the next several generations of titheboys came through.

But as Makedon stomped past them through the snow—up to take a turn plowing through the front, a tiring and unrewarding task that left one with aching hips and numb toes—he ran his hand through the damp curls on Damen’s head and grinned, and Atlas gave a mischievous lick to Moryl’s ear that had the dogwolf huffing yet again.

Damen _was_ a pup still. With much to learn.

As they climbed, the snow slowly began to lessen, but the sun was also sinking low, making it doubly cold. Several times, Damen leaned to check Moryl’s pads for ice, much as the wolf hated it. The small group forged on, trailing behind Makedon and Aratos and their bondsiblings. For hours more, they ascended, until the sun finally sunk below the mountains, until even the men born with northern blood were shaking and pressing together for warmth. And only then did they finally see the great gates in the distance. Ravenelthreat. It was bigger than the stories suggested, big enough that Damen wondered how any man could build it. He looked up at the towering wall, smattered with torches and marked from decades of battle, and felt like a child again, hearing stories of the Great Makers. And now, those ginormous gates were creaking open.

Makedon held up his fist, signaling the group to stop. A party of men began to emerge from the gates, their wolves striding through the snow at their sides. In the front was the current leader of the Ravenelthreat, his great konigenwolf by his side. They were both grizzled and old, fine strands of grey wondering through their hair. And yet as Aratos stepped forwards to clasp arms with the fellow wolfsprechend, their wolves touching noses, Damen found his eyes drawn to the young man behind them.

He was a few years older than Damen, dressed in tight leathers and a fine cloak wrapped around his shoulders. Damen was sure if he wore the same thing, he would’ve frozen his balls off, and yet the northerner appeared comfortable, even with the snow picking up again. He had a square jaw, smooth shaven, and his shoulders were broad and strong. His hair was so fine that it glinted like gold in the torchlight. Long and straight, tied into a neat tail that trailed well down his back. Beside him, his wolf was a giant pure white, her blue eyes the color of ice. She was large enough that her size nearly rivaled Moryl’s and as her gaze turned to Damen, he caught the scent of the wind, billowing off the mountains and through the valley.

_Puppy_ , she almost seemed to tease. Damen felt his face go red with surprise.

The man laughed, knocking a knee into his sister’s side, and then his eyes too turned to Damen. They were just as heavy, pinning Damen in place. Beside him, Damen felt Moryl all but roll his eyes. He did not appear impressed with Damen’s bashfulness. Instead, he started forwards, padding through the snow near soundlessly despite his enormous size. The white wolf seated herself, tail sweeping primly around her legs. As Moryl crept closer, Damen watched in amazement as his massive, surly beast bowed its head. And then he realized.

_Konigenwolf._

Or maybe not yet, but soon. Likely the new bitch who would take over the Ravenelthreat when the current leader fell, and the man who would rule at her side. Damen freed his hands from his mittens, and then he too, began to cross the snow.

“Hello,” he said, when he was close enough to see the intricate ties of the man’s cloak, face flaming as his voice cracked.

But the other man just laughed before holding out an arm. They clasped forearms, and Damen tried not to savor too much the feel of the other’s warm fingers on his skin. “You look very cold,” the man said, and his voice was rich and deep. “Come.” He nodded his head at his massive sister, and she began to trek back to camp, Moryl at her side.

He lead Damen through the gates and into the village, the rest of the men trailing along with them and dispersing. There was a great fire roaring in the center of the camp, and Damen instantly made his way to it, holding his hands out and wincing at the sting of warmth. For a moment, the man disappeared, and when he came back, he had two mugs of ale in his hands. “Here.” He pressed the mug into Damen’s clumsy fist.

Damen couldn’t help but sigh his relief, sipping at his drink. It had been heated and brewed with spices, warming him to the core. He savored every drop as he turned to the sights around him. This far north, the architecture was very different than Damen was used to. Almost everything was made of sturdy, dark wood and lashed together with twine and nails. The camp seemed to be arranged in a circular fashion, with this fire as the pinnacle, barracks and houses spanning out around it. Makedon had not lied when he told Damen that the northerners were a strange lot.

As he glanced around at the odd buildings and the even stranger people, he caught sight of Moryl, sitting still with all the exasperation of an old man while the white wolf licked at his face. Damen laughed out loud, and Moryl sent a deeply unhappy thought through their bond. It only widened his grin. The man followed his gaze and he too smiled at the sight of his massive beast cleaning Moryl like a housecat.

“Your girl certainly makes fast friends,” Damen said. “I’ve never seen Moryl so… _subdued_.”

“Janus has her ways,” the man agreed. Damen glanced at his face and found with a sense of pleasure that the man’s eyes were the exact same color as his sister’s. Like ice on the lakes. The color of the sky as it snowed. They reflected the firelight, streaks of orange and gold dancing over his skin and hair.

Damen could not bring himself to turn away even when the man caught his gaze. But the man’s smile grew, his eyes locking onto Damen’s. And Damen reached out his arm for the second time. “I am Damianos. Damianos Morylsbrother of Delphathreat.”

And the man, despite already having clasped hands, reached out and gripped him again. “Auguste,” he said. “Auguste Janusbrother.”

**Author's Note:**

> A quick overview: Iskryne is a universe in which male warriors become bonded to enormous trellwolves (think GoT direwolves). Together, they kill trolls and other monsters that prey upon human villages.
> 
> Bitch-wolf - used to refer to a female wolf.  
> Dog-wolf - used to refer to a male wolf.  
> Titheboys - every year, a group of sixteen year old boys are given to the wolfthreats to become new warriors.  
> Wolfthreat - a group of warriors from a certain region. Ravenelthreat is a wolfthreat, as is Delphathreat.  
> Wolfmaegth - the collective name for all of the men and their wolves, combined.  
> Naming - in the book, boys change their names when they become bonded with a wolf. Here, instead the man's last name is now represented by his wolf (i.e. Morylsbrother).  
> Scent-names - wolves name themselves using scents. They are all unique to the wolf and may match some of their personality traits  
> Konigenwolf - the queen. The HBIC. The giant, rare female wolves who lead the different threats.  
> Wolfsprechend - the man bonded to a konigenwolf.  
> Wolfjarl - the partner of the wolfsprechend. In Delphathreat, Makedon is wolfjarl while Aratos is wolfsprechend.


End file.
